Testimony of Dr. Tenzin Choedrak

Dr Choedrak's testimony is no longer available at the "save Tibet" website that was formerly found at this link. For reference, it has been reproduced here from http://www.archive.org/stream/victimsoftorture00unit/victimsoftorture00unit_djvu.txt:

Statement by Dr. Tenzin Choedrak before the House International Relations Committee Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights May 8, 1996

"Victim of Chinese Torture in Tibet"

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee for providing me
the opportunity to testify before you today.

My name is Tenzin Choedrak and I am a practitioner of traditional Tibetan
medicine. For 17 years of my life, I had to undergo different forms of torture
by China's occupying forces in Tibet. The fact that I have survived to tell this
tale before this august body is not because the torture that was inflicted upon me
was mild. Rather, my religious practice and my medical knowledge helped me to
overcome my suffering.

It is nearly 20 years since I regained my freedom, but the memory of my prison
days is still fresh in my mind. Although I live in freedom and dignity now, I am
very mindful of the fact that the suffering that I endured many years ago is still
occurring to thousands of Tibetans today.

A number of human rights organizations, including the International Campaign
for Tibet, have documented that torture continues to be routinely practiced
against Tibet's political prisoners. Common techniques include regular beatings,
the shackling of hands and feet, the use of thumb locks and the application of
electric cattle prods to sensitive parts of the body, including the mouth and
genitals.

Ill-treatment of Tibetans occurs even before they reach the prisons and detention
centers. When a prisoner is taken to the police station on the day of detention, it
is not uncommon for him or her to be beaten and tortured. In fact, new
techniques are now being used against these newly detained Tibetans, techniques
which leave no marks on the body. Such methods include being placed under
extremely cold conditions and then being abruptly subjected to hot conditions,
being made to stand barefoot for over 24 hours at a time, and being interrogated
for 12 to 24 hours without food or water.

In recent years, there have been twelve documented cases of individuals who have
died from ill-treatment and lack of medical care inside prisons and detention
centers, and it is suspected that there are dozens more. One recent case, a twenty-
four year old nun, Gyaltsen Kelsang, died in 1995 after she was beaten in prison
and was forced to continue to perform hard labor without being provided
medical attention.

I have also treated torture victims myself, including a 24 year old nun from
Lhasa, Tibet's capital, who escaped in 1989 after having been subjected to sticks
being forced into her genitals while in incarceration. Another 24 year old nun,
Soyang, who is my niece, required treatment for heart problems when she
arrived into exile in 1993 because the Chinese had let dogs loose to attack her.
This year, I treated a monk whose back was very swollen from severe beatings he
received while in prison in Tibet. I also treated Palden Gyatso, who testified
before this Subcommittee last year on the torture he received by Chinese guards
in Tibet. In addition, I know of many women in nunneries in Dharamsala, the
seat of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile, who have suffered torture. At the
inpatient department of the medical institute in Dharamsala, where I work, we
have on average of 5 patients in our beds who need medical attention for torture
wounds.

My own ordeal began on March 10, 1959 when the people of Lhasa rose up in
unison against China's ten-year old occupation of Tibet. This uprising was
ruthlessly suppressed by Chinese forces. In the subsequent days, there were
constant sounds of artillery as Chinese military personnel bombarded Lhasa.
Being one of the personal physicians of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, I was then
residing in the residential complex of the Dalai Lama's parents.

On the afternoon of March 22, Chinese troops arrived at our compound.
Without warning, they started shooting; four people in our house who had gone
out to meet the soldiers were killed immediately. The soldiers, who were armed
with machine guns, then stormed the building, shooting recklessly and ransacking
the entire area. Everyone living in the compound, including myself, was rounded
up in one windowless room on the first floor.

The next evening, we were informed that we were being selected for "studies",
what we believed to be a euphemism for execution. We were then led out of the
compound to the outskirts of the city and placed in a small room of a private
house. For the next two days, we did not get any food or water. On the second
night we were led from the room to the local People's Liberation Army (PLA)
headquarters and kept in a maximum security prison there. I was manacled in
foot-and-a-half-long leg irons. Each time I took a step the irons pinched my skin,
giving me pain.

As the days went by, I began to witness gruesome sessions of "Thamzing", which
were methods of interrogation combined with force that were peculiar to
Communist Chinese officials. One such method involved tying the prisoner in
such a way as to give him maximum suffering. For example, a rope was first
laid across the front of the prisoner's chest and then spiraled down each arm.
The wrists were then tied together and pulled backwards over the man's head.
Next the rope-ends were drawn under either armpit, threaded through the loop
on the chest and pulled abruptly down. Immediately the shoulders turned in their
sockets, wrenching the prisoner in a grisly contortion without strangling him.
The pain from this torture was so great that a man would invariably lose control
of his bowels and bladder.

A few months after my arrest, I was put on trial and accused of being an
accomplice in the uprising against the Chinese invaders. As the trial progressed,
I began to realize that I was being singled out for a specific purpose: to malign
and defame His Holiness the Dalai Lama. For instance, my questioners told me at
one time that the way to avoid Thamzing would be to confirm that the Dalai
Lama was a thief and a murderer, posing as a religious man, and that he had an
incestuous relationship with his sister.

After a few days of interrogation, I was then subjected to the first of a series of
Thamzing. It began one morning with the PLA commander asking my fellow
prisoners to "question Tenzin Choedrak very closely. You must find the truth."
As one prisoner rose up asking me to tell everything, others grabbed me, tying
my arms across a long board in a variation of the method that had previously
been used. Trailing the rope off either end my arms were pulled tight even while
I was asked to denounce the Dalai Lama. When I refused, the prisoners, under
the watchful eyes of the guards, started beating me, pulling my hairs and ears,
spitting on my face and pummeling my head. The pain in my arm was so great
that I began to scream and it was only when I collapsed that the guards called for
a halt. However, the beating resumed after a short rest and this pattern was
repeated throughout that morning. In all, this session lasted four hours.

I was then removed from the cell and placed in solitary confinement. Of course,
I was too weak to be aware of the shift in my location. It was only when I
recovered that I found myself in a dark room, four by eight feet in dimension,
with a small, barred window, high in one wall, and a six-inch-square hole for
receiving food. On the mud floor lay a straw mat, a discarded PLA overcoat and
a bucket for relieving myself. I was to spend the next four months ~ the
remainder of the summer of 1959 - in this isolated area.

My daily routine included thinking over my "crimes" for the entire day. The
door of the food portal (I only received a small steamed bun with some rice and
vegetable in the morning through this) would open at regular intervals
throughout the day and a guard would check to see if I was visibly pondering.
My only relief was a brief glimpse of sky and breath of fresh air on the evening
walk to the toilet. On the last day of each week, I would be taken out of the cell
for questioning and asked what I had been thinking about for the past six days.

Halfway through July, I was subjected to a second session of Thamzing. Again, I
received severe beatings which caused damage to my eyes. By the time I was
dragged back to my cell, I realized that the retina of my left eye had been
detached and the eyeball itself knocked to the upper left side of its socket. I could
no longer focus straight ahead. I also found that the entire upper row of my teeth
had come loose. Within a month, all my teeth fell out, leaving me with swollen
and bloody gums. My shattered mouth and damaged eye remain a permanent
scar from that particular Thamzing session. In August of that year, I subjected to
an even more intense and brutal Thamzing session.

I will not trouble you with graphic details of that particular torture session.
However, at the end of it, I had lost all sense of pain. My only sensation was that
of an intense dryness in the mouth. As the dryness increased, I blacked out and
when I regained consciousness, I was still imagining receiving blows. In reality,
I was lying on the floor of the isolation cell; a bucket of cold water had just been
thrown over my face. When the guards realized that I had revived, they yanked
me to my feet and handcuffed me. Months later, I learned from my cellmates
that when I collapsed, a PLA doctor was summoned, which was contrary to the
medical attention that most Tibetans prisoners received. The doctor had
pronounced that I was on the verge of death and he therefore refused to take
responsibility for my case. Sometime thereafter, the Thamzing session ceased.

In October 1959, I was among 79 prisoners who were taken to China. Our
journey began in November when we were put in trucks, 38 prisoners in each
truck. We were forced to stand for the entire journey, which lasted ten days. On
the 11th day, we reached Lake Kokonor in northeast Tibet and we were then
transported east, toward Lanzhou, by train. From Lanzhou, we were split into
two groups and my group was driven north, toward the Gobi desert. We finally
reached Jiuzhen Prison, our destination, which was part of the dreaded gulags the
Chinese had set up in the region. We were huddled together in small, cramped
cells which provided only a foot and a half of space for a single prisoner.

Each day we were led to work in the fields. Guarded by PLA soldiers, who
would shoot any man crossing his field's perimeter, we had to break enough
barren ground daily, including irrigation ditches, to be suitable for cultivating
thirty pounds of wheat. A point system rewarded those who completed their
quota, something a strong man could barely manage to do. Those who did not
were punished. Returning from the day's labor, we had to undergo political
"study sessions" lasting until 10 p.m. In addition, prisoners were randomly taken
for a full-day of questioning in an attempt to wear them down.

In May of 1960, six months after our arrival in Jiuzhen prison, our rations were
reduced from sixteen and a half to eight and a half pounds a month. To save yet
more grain, the authorities started mixing indigestible roots and barks with the
food.

Hunger governed our every thought. With the beginning of summer, the first
symptom of starvation appeared: extreme enervation. By July, we all resembled
living skeletons. Ribs, hips and shin bones protruded from our bodies, our chests
were concave, our eyes bulged and our teeth (those who still possessed them)
were loose. Gradually our eyebrows and hair, once shiny and black, turned
russet, then beige and then fell out, the hair coming loose from the skin with just
a slight pull. No one could walk securely. Leg joints felt locked in place, our
feet were dragged along, too heavy to lift. When we returned from work we
literally crashed down, unable to check our fall.

The first death, which had been expected, occurred only a year and a half later.
We did not grieve, however, for we had lost all of our senses except for an
ability to quarrel over food. We now realized that we were sentenced to die
through forced labor, instead of being executed, so that the authorities could
appear blameless. Within just a few days, the next man died. From then on, an
average of two to three prisoners died every week with the longest interval
between deaths lasting no more than a fortnight.

Death of a fellow prisoner occasionally provided an increase in rations — for a
single day at least. The loss could be hidden from the guards and the deceased's
rations obtained. I was able to share an extra ration with another prisoner
through this method when we found the man lying next to me dead one morning.

As the starvation continued we began to consume our own clothes. Leather
ropes, used to tie the bundles brought from Tibet, were cut into daily portions
with stones and shovels. Each piece was slowly chewed during work, in the hope
that some strength could thereby be gained. I owned a fur-lined jacket, which
had proved invaluable through the first winter, but in the course of the following
summer, I was compelled to eat it. I began eating the fur. As winter came again,
I managed to roast the rest of my jacket, piece by piece, over a fire and eat it.
The other prisoners and myself also picked many plants — dandelions were a
favorite -- walking to and from the fields. We also hunted for frogs and insects
and dug for worms.

A more constant source of food was the refuse discarded by Chinese guards.
Crowds of prisoners would gather around bones or fruit rinds thrown by the
roadside.

As we were completing our first year in Jiuzhen, I collapsed and was hospitalized
for three months. I recovered quicker than others in the hospital because I was
able to develop a form of self cure. On my return to work at Jiuzhen, I learned
that the death toll had soared. By October of 1962, only 21 Tibetans had
survived. In that month, we were informed that we would be allowed to return
to Tibet.

We were transported to Drapchi, Tibet's foremost prison in Lhasa. I was placed
in a 14-man cell only 16 by 12 feet in dimension. It was so small that when each
prisoner slept head to head in two rows, our feet hit the walls forcing us to bend
our knees. We were forced to spend every waking hour in study, to confess our
faults daily and to inform on our neighbor. It was at this time that mental
breakdowns, depression and suicidal behavior appeared amongst fellow prisoners.

By this time, I had spent many years in prison, but no formal charge had been
brought against me nor had I received a sentence. It was only in 1972 — nearly
13 years since my arrest -- that I finally received my sentence. Although no
charges were placed against me, I was considered an "upper class intelligentsia
associated with the former Tibetan government" -- and was given a 17 year
sentence.

Following my sentencing, I was transferred to a less restrictive branch of Sangyib
prison, also in Lhasa. My "reeducation" being deemed complete, I was assigned
to hard labor in the prison's quarry. Every day, I was forced to chisel 90 twelve-
by-eight-inch stone blocks from boulders blasted out of the mountainside nearby.
I could barely perform my share of work.

In the next year, a Chinese prison doctor, who was familiar with my medical
knowledge, consulted me on a personal ailment when he learned that I was in
Sangyib prison. The Chinese doctor recovered using my treatment and before
long, I was removed from my cell and sent to work in Sangyib hospital.

In 1976, having completed my full sentence, I was placed outside of Sangyib
prison although still considered "an enemy of the people". I was able to practice
medicine once more and also started receiving a small salary for my work at the
hospital.

In the meanwhile, direct contact between the Tibetan Government-in-Exile and
the Chinese Government was being established. As a result, the first-ever fact-
finding delegation from Dharamsala visited Tibet in 1979. That delegation
included Mr. Lobsang Samten, a brother of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He took
up my case with the Chinese Government and asked them to permit me to visit
India. The process took over a year and it was only in October 1980 that I
finally left for India. I reached Dharamsala in November 1980. I was once again
a free man.

Today, the Chinese government seeks to join the mainstream of the international
community while at the same time it continues to deny that torture and ill-
treatment of Chinese and Tibetan political prisoners is widespread and
commonplace. As someone who has been a victim of torture by the Chinese
government, I would urge the United States government to use its vast influence
to bring about a positive change in China's treatment of the Chinese and Tibetan
people. I would also urge the U.S. to support efforts by His Holiness the Dalai
Lama to peacefully resolve the situation in Tibet.

I am very thankful for having been given the opportunity to address this
Subcommittee. Although the reminder of my ordeal brings much personal agony
to me, I realize I have to speak out so that those Tibetans still in Chinese prisons
may have a better life.